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Dementia-friendly faith groups

Find out how faith can play a vital role in the lives and wellbeing of people living with and affected by dementia.

What role can faith play for people affected by dementia?

Faith can play an integral part to the life of someone living with dementia by:

Providing practical support. Faith can enable people to continue to feel part of their community, faith groups can sign-post to useful information, provide activities for people to engage with and connect people.

Enabling Dementia Friendly Communities. Faith groups can help share values, create a welcoming and inclusive space, provide a service through to the end of life, challenge attitudes, and signpost to other organisations that can help. Faith communities are one of the few truly intergenerational spaces which allow children and people living with dementia to interact.

What can you do?

Support someone with dementia to continue practising their faith

Acknowledge dementia in services and programming. Uphold positive feelings in the community and change the language around dementia rather than focusing on grief. Suggest shorter services in your community with familiar songs and prayers specifically for people with dementia.

Offer support. Places of worship can host support groups for people living with dementia and their carers, providing a safe space to exchange experiences.

Provide a role. People with dementia still have a role to play and there are plenty of opportunities within a faith community to participate. For example, helping to maintain the place of worship, helping to serve food or drinks at celebrations, or assisting with services.

To find out what is happening in your local community, get in touch with the Dementia Friendly Communities team by emailing [email protected]

Tell people about your organisation

If you run a service in your local area, you can list it for free on our website through our Dementia Connect Service. You can raise awareness and promote your services to people in your local area. If you are looking to list your services, please go to Dementia Connect Business.

Become a Dementia Friend

Help make the world a more dementia-friendly place by becoming a Dementia Friend.

What work is Alzheimer’s Society doing in this area?

We recently hosted our first ever conference on faith. Over 100 people attended from various faith groups, including members of the Sikh, Jain, Jewish, Bahá'í and Muslim communities.

The conference focused on understanding how identity, faith and dementia interact, and the continued importance of faith to people living with dementia. Read more about our event on faith and dementia.